Details

Description

Of the seven shading methods described in the PDF specification, type 6 (Coons patch meshes) and type 7 (Tensor-product patch meshes) haven't been implemented. I have done type 1, 4 and 5, but I don't know the math for type 6 and 7. My math days are decades away.

Knowledge prerequisites:

java, although you don't have to be a java ace, just feel confortable

math: you should know what "cubic Bézier curves", "Degenerate Bézier curves", "bilinear interpolation", "tensor-product", "affine transform matrix" and "Bernstein polynomials" are, or be able to learn it

maven (basic)

svn (basic)

an IDE like Netbeans or Eclipse or IntelliJ (basic)

ideally, you are either a math student who likes to program, or a computer science student who is specializing in graphics.

You are not starting from scratch. The implementation of type 4 and 5 shows you how to read parameters from the PDF and set the graphics. You don't have to learn the complete PDF spec, only 15 pages related to the two shading types, and 6 pages about shading in general. The PDF specification is here:http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html

Testing:
I have attached several example PDFs. To see which one has which shading, open them with an editor like NOTEPAD++, and search for "/ShadingType" (without the quotes). If your images are rendering like the example PDFs, then you were successful.

Optional:
Review and optimize the complete shading package for speed; implement cubic spline interpolation for type 0 (sampled) functions (that one is really low-low priority, see details by looking up "cubic spline interpolation" in the PDF spec, which tells that it is disregarded in printing, and I don't have a test PDF).